Talk:Baudot code

Lower case in telegraph code?
Re: Original Baudot, Continental European Tree4rest (talk) 22:29, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Currently: t 0074
 * Why isn't: T 0054


 * Yes, the "t" seems wrong. I changed it to "T". Guy Harris (talk) 00:33, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Nope! It appears, in the leftmost chart of "Fig 1. The Baudot code" in the reference for that table, that it's an underlined superscript lower-case "t".  I'm not sure what that would be used for; there are other underlined superscripted upper-case letters, such as "F", "H", and "O".  U+1D57 is "MODIFIER LETTER SMALL T", which is in the "Phonetic Extensions" block, but, according to the official Unicode chart, it's not underlined, so, if it really is underlined, it'd have to be mapped to a combining character plus "MODIFIER LETTER SMALL T". Guy Harris (talk) 05:27, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Underlined superscripted letters in "Original Baudot, Continental European"?
Does anybody know what the characters shown as superscripted, double-underlined letters in the left-hand chart of "Fig 1. The Baudot code" of the reference for the charts in "Original Baudot, Continental European" are? The letters appear to be capital "F", capital "H", capital or lower-case "O"/"o", and lower-case "t". I tried some Web searching, but didn't find anything obvious. Guy Harris (talk) 05:34, 2 October 2020 (UTC)


 * The French Wiki page has this source with a table that matches the double underlined "t" (there it is a capitalized but small "T") with a period "." character as secondary meaning. The code is the same from the patent and a regular capital letter "T" is also present on the listing. May indicate end of message (transmis/transmitted) (tout/all) or perhaps underline. Other letters having it suggests a convention perhaps of a control character usage. 24.240.218.117 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 00:20, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Messed up tables
How is this

meant to be an improvement on this?

In my browser, the first one has a huge whitespace to the right. The second version you tried leaves behind a key that will be baffling to the reader. SpinningSpark 17:02, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
 * , As I have told you several times, all data tables need captions (per MOS:TABLECAPTION) and you should not have nested tables (!): that's wildly inaccessible. ―Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:18, 29 October 2020 (UTC)
 * You've told me, but you are not in charge any more than I am. I'm all for making things more accessible, but that shouldn't be done at the expense of sacrificing the appearance for the majority of readers.  Your latest attempt has unhidden the table which makes the article more difficult for readers (probably the majority) who want to just skip past the table.  I'm not saying there is not a problem, but can you please explain exactly what the problem is, then perhaps between us we can come up with a solution.  Why does a caption work better than the rolled up title of a hidden table?  Why do you consider the nesting to be nesting of data tables when the table is only wrapped inside a title, not more data? SpinningSpark 18:23, 29 October 2020 (UTC)
 * , I've made several attempts at this: how about you do the work that you keep on offloading to me. How things look is not anywhere near as important as how accessible they are and the current version is perfectly fine aesthetically and is accessible. See MOS:SMALL, MOS:TABLECAPTION, and MOS:COLLAPSE: as far as I can tell, you haven't read them and you keep on inserting nested tables as well (!) which is totally inaccessible. The fact that you keep on doing this seems to prove that you haven't read or comprehended Help:Table or any other documentation on tables that I have repeatedly asked you to read. ―Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:39, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

I notice the table headers that say "sort keys" don't work. I have no idea if that has anything to do with the above discussion. 2602:24A:DE47:BA60:8FCB:EA4E:7FBD:4814 (talk) 23:29, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

Inland & Continental: British order?
While continental order looks rather logical to code both vowels and consonants in their natural order on 5 bits (31 values), what is supposed to be the inland/British logic?

Is it more an order for coding numbers on 4 bits (15 values)? a reuse of any previous code? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.67.202.154 (talk • contribs) 22:45, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

Table cleanup
People have already mentioned problems with accessibility of the table's backend code... but the table layout itself is inaccessible even to sighted, first-language-English readers, let alone blind or ESL ones.

How is someone using a screen reader meant to be able to understand the bit patterns, from this table? There's no earthly way! How does a screen reader read a blank column? A column containing nothing but a bulletpoint?

What's the rationale for having Gray code be the default ordering? For ordering by Gray code at all? For having each of the value columns twice? For having each bit of the value in a separate column? For having the value columns randomly positioned within the table? For bulletpoints and spaces instead of either the traditional plusses and minuses to indicate telegraph wire polarity, or modern 1s and 0s? For having "Let" and "Fig" headings in the UK but not Eur side? For not having those columns sortable? For splitting the "sort keys" columns? For even having the "sort keys" columns in the first place? For inconsistently calling it "Europe" in one place, "Continental" in another? For abbreviating items on the UK side only? Why are the erasure codes incorrectly marked as asterisks in the UK side? Why are the underlined "F H O  T" in Eur displayed in lowercase, rather than the more canonical uppercase? Why is the Fig by "V" marked as a superscript "1" rather than an apostrophe "'"? ...

As someone who knows nothing, and who comes to an encyclopaedia for answers, none of this made any sense. So I dug into it for a few hours, and my proposal is below. I have not "been bold" and made the change, as I accept that I am a complete ignoramus in this area, and I have likely made at least a few egregious errors.

Rationale

 * Addresses at least the wilder things from the list above.
 * That lengthy introductory paragraph can go.
 * Infinitely more accessible to screen readers.
 * Also more accessible to human eyeballs.
 * Few abbreviations, so translation can have a fighting chance.
 * The "Binary" column for "code" has the bits in binary order, because that's the sanest for accessibility; and it sorts in binary order.
 * The "Keyboard" column is in the bit order "54:123", as this table previously tried to show. The sort is set as Gray, but only because I assume that's of some academic interest... I can't guess what, though. I don't see any more use to this ordering than to Pendry's "plan".
 * The "Type-Wheel" column is in transmission bit order ("12345": little-endian). I also have this set as the default sort order, because (completely arbitrarily!) I felt it's the nicest looking, and most historically interesting. Also, since it appears randomish, it encourages people to experiment with the sort buttons :)
 * I've also set some characters (control codes, funky numbers) to have a custom sort order, for sanity's sake.

Further work needs to be done
I am far from qualified to do any of this. I know nothing, and Googling around the matter for hours has failed me.


 * Find something better than numbered dots for the "keyboard" and 'type-wheel' columns. There's some unfortunate markup in the table to make the numbered balls be the same size, and large enough to read. Also, in dark mode, it's likely that people will read it the opposite to the intended way, maybe. "10:110", "&#9745;&#9744;:&#9744;&#9745;&#9745;", "+-:-++", "+-:-++", "&#9745;&#9744;:&#9744;&#9745;&#9745;" (that one's kinda nice, but again, dark mode?) ...? What's something that doesn't look too awful, is visible on most systems, works in dark mode, and is not as egregiously inaccessible as "● : ●●"?"
 * Maybe remove one or both of the keyboard and type-wheel columns. But they do both have historical relevance.
 * A textual section on "traditional formatting" should be added to describe punched-tape layout, sprocket-spacing after the second character, the fact that the original print wheel sorted by a code of diagonal lines (not a Gray code, despite what that wiki page claims!), that the endianness of the transmission order was never specified, etc.
 * Explain what the "  " characters in Eur meant, and maybe replace with "   " or even "undefined", which seems closest to the various early sources I can find.
 * Explain why the values "1/ 3/ 5/ 7/ 9/" were included in the UK - at first glance they seem like shilling values, or the top of fractions, but if so, why only odd numbers?
 * Explain why the values "1" and "2" were included in the UK. Perhaps they were footnotes in the original source, but they don't seem to be, in Google's scan of either edition of Pendry.
 * More of the characters, especially in the Figs columns, need custom sort orders.

Proposal

 * I agree that the sort keys in the table are not helpful. Gray code is not relevant to this application.  I can't even work out what the "Continental" and "UK" sort keys are even doing – it's almost, but not quite, a binary sort.  I would be happy to see the sort key columns removed altogether.  Having said that, I don't think your reworked table is much of an improvement.  Sorting by binary value is not an especially good choice for the default.  That is only helpful to someone trying to manually read a punched tape (ie reverse translation) which is not something that many readers are going to want to do.  In any case, it is quite arbitrary which bit is considered the MSB in a code which (I think) was never stored digitally, so historically never had a representation as a number.  Thus, it is WP:OR to have a binary column at all.
 * The "keyboard" column is numbered in the wrong order. The numbering goes from the central black key outwards – 1,2,3 to the right and 4,5 to the left.  That is, 4 and 5 are the wrong way round.  I'm not sure what you mean by "type-wheel" code.  This is actually showing the transmission order of the bits (which I agree is a useful column to have).  The type-wheel has a definite order of characters, but it doesn't amount to a different code.  It's just a different ordering, so shouldn't show any coding.  It should just reorder the other columns.  Very oddly, I have to click the type-wheel column three times before it sorts into typewheel order (A,E,Y,J,X...).
 * I really don't like the fussy little numbers in circles. It would be much clearer to have the bit numbers as headings and show the coding as plain black dots. SpinningSpark 12:31, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
 * By the way, the article does not even mention "typewheel" so some explanation of that column would be required if it is retained. SpinningSpark 09:30, 9 October 2022 (UTC)